Serial
by kingofFevers
Summary: Petra convinces Lukas to come to *one* club meeting with her, and everything that follows is definitely 100% harmless and wholesome and does not leave him mentally scarred by the end of it. Absolutely not a scam at all. (Major Character Deaths; Based heavily on Doki Doki Literature Club) (Just AU)


**TW; BASED HEAVILY ON DOKI DOKI LITERATURE CLUB**

 **(VIOLENCE, GORE, STRONG LANGUAGE, SUICIDE)**

* * *

 **1**

* * *

Lukas pushed the bile of anxiety back down when he saw the last schoolmate he knew from the block disappear around the corner.

His hand reached for the phone in his pocket, debating whether to call Petra or not, but he drew back when he heard a gate nearby open.

A sigh of relief escaped his lips when he saw Petra exit her house, adjusting her tie and hurriedly closing the gate behind her. "I almost thought you died," he said with a laugh, and Petra punched his arm.

"You wouldn't last a _day_ without me, asshat."

"You wish."

She stuck her tongue out at him, and the two walked side by side to the school.

* * *

Lukas knew he and Petra were close friends and all, but he didn't think that gave her any warrant to drag him wherever, whenever.

"You'll die a lonely prick if you insist on not joining any club!"

He sighed and put the sandwich down, finally deciding to humor his childhood friend by looking her in the eye. She gave him a pout.

"That's unrealistic," he said curtly. Petra groaned.

"Just _one_ meeting! One!" She leant back and crossed her arms, "Then you can decide whether to join or not."

He thought over it for a moment, chewing on his sandwich slowly. He swallowed, "This is what? The literature club?"

"Yeah, man," A grin began to form on her face, eyes glinting, as if remembering something fondly, "We're totally chill, and literature is 100% an umbrella term. One moment we're raving about _Akutagawa_ , then the next we're screaming about _The Flashpoint Paradox_."

Though he had no idea what one of the things she said even was, Lukas thought over it for the remainder of the school day, anyway; and very soon came to the conclusion that it wouldn't hurt to humor his best friend.

It's the least he could do for her.

* * *

When the dismissal bell rang, Lukas made his way to the club room, double checking Petra's text to make sure it was the right one.

Reading the sign, he nodded, and he knocked thrice before opening the door.

A girl wearing her hair in twin tails greeted him immediately.

"Welcome to the literature club," she said with a smile, "You're Lukas, aren't you?"

* * *

 **2**

* * *

The club consisted of four members: Olivia, the club captain; Jesse, their resident horror enthusiast; Axel, the ridiculously tall Sophomore; and Petra, the girl responsible for roping Lukas into joining a meeting.

She'd given him his word, alright, and Lukas's pride wasn't too hurt to admit that he enjoyed hanging out with his friend's other peers.

Petra gave him a thumbs up as Jesse dragged him away and spent an entire half hour explaining the complexity of a multimedia story and its parallels to real life events. The next moment he got a cupcake box thrown at him by Axel, who was completely unapologetic; very soon, the club was thrown into a fit of laughter.

He enjoyed a couple of chocolate cupcakes while Olivia and Axel debated over the validity of fanfiction as literature. "This is totally normal," Petra whispered to him, "Olivia indulges herself on shipfics during class."

"How do you know that?"

She grinned, "'Cause she freaks out in iMessage all the time."

He chuckled, and the day went on.

* * *

Lukas found himself returning to the club every meeting, his Mondays ending with him and Petra walking home after two hours' worth of shenanigans, literature and not-literature related.

The club was, contrary to his expectations, fun.

By the fourth week after, he was made an honorary member.

"You're welcome to join officially, if you want," Olivia said as they picked crumbs up from the floor, "Door's always open for new people, and we could use an extra hand for the Talent Fest."

"Maybe I will," he said lightheartedly. After a while, as he picked his bag up from the floor and prepared to join Petra in the hall, he said, "You guys have got awesome chemistry. It's nice to see."

Olivia returned the smile and said, "It'll be cooler if you didn't have to just see it, wouldn't it?"

The club earned its fifth member by the end of the month.

* * *

"You really like the club, don't you?"

Lukas raised a brow, "Well, yeah," he gave her an odd look, "Why?"

Isn't that what she wanted?

She shrugged, failing to keep her eyes away from him; she settled on his shoes. "It's nothing," was said with a shrug, "I'm just being weird, is all."

"Petra?" He began, but she gave him no opportunity to respond. With a quick 'sorry' and a sleeved arm up to her eyes, she rushed forward, turning the corner and out of sight before he could catch up.

It felt like an eternity of standing there dumbfounded.

The same was felt when she was offline the rest of the night.

* * *

 **3**

* * *

He found her body the next day.

Broken neck, blood soaked bedroom; terror branded to dilated, grey eyes for as long as they were open.

A funeral. A day. A week. A month.

The Literature Club was quiet.

What day was it today?

"Lukas?"

He looked up, Axel staring at him awkwardly. The younger boy handed him a cupcake box, a blue-striped ribbon tied neatly around it.

"I thought we could use a little comfort food," he said softly. The Senior blinked down at it momentarily, then accepted it.

"Thanks, Ax."

The boy sat next to him and unwrapped his own box, taking a bite of the minty treat without noise.

Lukas let himself get lost in the haze with the familiar flavor.

* * *

"We're totally chill," Petra had said, but Lukas thinks it's because she was there.

Jesse and Olivia were at odds.

The Freshman pulled down a sleeve with a huff and left the classroom as softly as passive-aggression could let a teen be. Olivia's gaze lingered on the door before she turned back to the two boys.

"We need to get our shit together," she said plainly, though the emptiness was obvious in her voice.

Axel and Lukas shared a look.

The younger boy frowned.

* * *

Several Fridays in, the boys found themselves walking home with a stack of new books wrapped in plastic.

The trip to the bookstore was, surprisingly, reinvigorating.

"You think Jesse's gonna like these?" Axel asked anxiously, "Or that they'll ever make up?"

"They made up a couple of weeks ago, didn't they?"

The taller boy gave him a look. Lukas frowned.

"...Didn't they?"

Axel shook his head, "That wasn't 'making up,' they're just tolerating each other," he sighed, "Anytime now, they're gonna blow up at each other again."

They continued to walk in silence as Lukas took the information in. Narrowly dodging a fellow pedestrian, the blonde spoke up, "Is there anything we can do?"

"Maybe," Axel glanced at him, "But we'd better be lucky. I mean, maybe it's just me, but it's- it's really hard to talk sense into them."

Biting his lip, Lukas thought for several moments, before finally saying with vigor, "Well, you asked, didn't you?" He grinned up at the younger boy, who blinked, "That means there's some hope for them, and the club. We've gotta try something; maybe kick their asses, Petra-style."

At this, a grin began to form on Axel's face, and Lukas beamed.

The boys continued to walk, letting the sound of the nightly bustle take over.

'There's hope for the club,' Lukas thought.

'Petra wouldn't want this for us.'

All of a sudden, a blur of red ran between them. Lukas staggered back, dropping the bags to the pavement and losing sight of his friend.

"Axel?!"

A horn, a scream, and a crash.

Lukas sat on the sidewalk, eyes wide and mouth agape, numb, aghast and covered in blood.

Mangled remains lay next to torn books.

* * *

 **4**

* * *

Lukas was terrified.

The ceiling lamp swung lifelessly, the whine of the rusty metal filling the silence of his room.

If he got lost enough in a daze, it would sound like a scream.

Back

And forth

Back

And forth

He shivered, took a breath, and screwed his eyes shut.

The red blur laughed, and green eyes glinted in the dark.

Back and forth.

Lukas was terrified.

* * *

"Where's Jesse?"

Olivia jolted and looked up from scrawled paper. She blinked and registered his question, then shrugged with a shake of her head.

"I dunno," she was trembling, though Lukas didn't comment on it, "Upstairs, maybe. Check the storage rooms, those are always haunted."

Figures that he would find a ouija board and melted candles.

What sent Lukas bolting to the rooftop were the abandoned school shoes, laying next to a cupcake box and striped ribbons.

* * *

Long hair was blown back by the wind, and a yellow cardigan lay abandoned on the floor.

When he called, Jesse turned slowly, stepping only to look at the upperclassman sideways.

"Jesse, what are you doing?!" Lukas screamed, and the wind blew harder. The orange sky seemed to grin wickedly down below.

"What does it look like?" Jesse yelled through the violent breeze. Anxiously, Lukas looked down at the edge, feet only wearing socks coming dangerously close to slipping.

He was trembling, "Please come back!" and he definitely wasn't crying. "Go away from the edge, this isn't worth it!"

Immediately, the boy cursed at his lack of understanding on what he's supposed to say. A sinking feeling in his gut told him that only one person was getting out of this alive, but he tried to ignore it.

"Please!"

Jesse stared, bangs nearly covering dark eyes. Then a grin, as sickening as the red blur and the sky and the ever strengthening haze; and Lukas paled.

"I think Olivia wants to see you, Lukas."

A boy's screams pierced the air, the cardigan was blown back, and a body went _crunch!_ on the school's front yard.

* * *

 **5**

* * *

It took him this long to realize that everything was gone.

The halls were empty, the air stuffy, and red tinted the world as the sun remained set on the horizon. Any semblance of normalcy was gone as Lukas rushed through the halls, as he couldn't figure out if he was wearing a uniform or a striped shirt, a leather jacket or a cardigan, a torn green or neat red tie.

If anything was real or not.

He slipped and tears began to fall, and the pain flared as he got up and ran, stumbling down the stairs and crashing into the walls; and he didn't care and wouldn't stop until he made it to the club room.

The chairs were gone, the lights were a violent red, and the view from the window was nothing but emptiness.

Green grid lines and a black background; and Olivia standing in front of a mirror.

Her back was turned to Lukas.

He yelled, and she finally smiled.

* * *

"Haven't you realized yet, Lukas?" Olivia asked, though he isn't sure it's her when the voice is doubled and accompanied by somebody else. His voice was only a little lower, otherwise raspy and high. Orange and green came to Lukas' mind.

The girl stood up, blue scarf or white hoodie flickering in the light, coming and going as the beams outside passed the glass. "Your sins," she stood, and he stepped back, horrified at the voice and the mirror and what came before.

Her reflection, eyes, voice- they weren't the same.

They were hers, but they weren't at all.

It made sense and it didn't, as if his mind wasn't anymore of a mess as is.

Yellow rods stitched like crossbones reflected against Olivia's back.

"This is all your fault, Lukas," she took a step forward, and pale green or red or olive green glowed. With incessant beeps and blinking and gears and numbers, she continued on, like this was all normal.

"We wouldn't have died," she sobbed, tears broke, and she cried, "If it weren't for you!"

And THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT reverberated around the room. She lunged at him and he shielded himself and everything burned and all there was was screaming and tears and blood and his fault

His fault

His fault

His fault

His fault

Straddled on top of him, knife glinting in the moonlight, blue eyes widened, and Aiden screamed.

The knife was buried deep into Lukas' chest.

* * *

He bolted upwards, breathing erratic and heavy, eyes wide and sweating bullets. Reality rushed back to him like a speeding train.

Blood flowing through his body, sweat coating his skin, and a heart beating rapidly against its cage- the senses were overwhelming, but welcome all the same.

He heaved a sigh and brushed his bangs back, eyes darting all over the room.

A futile gesture.

He let himself breathe, gather his thoughts and compose himself.

Lukas covered his eyes and let the darkness take over momentarily.

Reality warped, and in a moment, he looked up.

Standing proudly in front of him, the Aarigayan courthouse, and a little girl in pigtails running past on the sidewalk.


End file.
